Electrical connections to circuit boards make use of plug-in connectors, among other things, in which contact pins are disposed in one or several rows. In general, these pins of the plug-in connector, which serve as electrical contacts, are assembled onto the circuit board. To attach the pins and to produce a conductive connection with the circuit board, both through-hole assembly (THT technology) and surface mounting (SMD technology) are used. In general, the pins are held in an electrically insulating body in the form of a pin strip, and this body holds the pins at the spacing desired for the plug-in connector.
For purposes of automatic assembly, automated assembly devices are frequently used that grasp the pin strip with a suction head, in order to remove it from a feed magazine and place it onto the desired location on the circuit board. For this purpose, a small suction plate is provided, which is set onto a few pins of the pin strip and pulled off after the pin strip has been positioned and soldered onto the circuit board.
In the attached drawing, examples of this known device are shown in FIGS. 16 to 20. FIGS. 16 to 18 show an assembly device using the through-hole or push-through method. The pin strip has an insulating body 10 made of plastic, into which pins 12 are inserted at a predetermined raster distance. For purposes of handling the pin strip by means of an automated assembly device, a small suction plate 14 (pick-and-place pad) is set onto the center pins 12, which plate forms a suction surface for the suction head of the automated assembly device. The automated assembly device grasps the pin strip at the small suction plate 14 with its suction head, and positions the pin strip on a circuit board 16. After the pins are positioned and soldered onto the circuit board 16, the small suction plate 14 is pulled off, as shown in FIG. 17. FIG. 18 shows the pin strip as assembled onto the, circuit board 16, using through-hole technology, in a partial sectional view. FIGS. 19 and 20 show a corresponding pin strip, in which the pins 12 are angled away at the ends where they are to be set onto the circuit board 16, SO that surface assembly of the pin strip onto the circuit board 16 is enabled, as shown in FIG. 20.
Such a device for assembling a pin strip onto a circuit board is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 6,224,399 B1.